His eyes rove over me manically, like he still doesn’t quite believe I’m not in pieces.
Something foreign and warm shoots through me; has me speaking before I even consider the words. “I’m okay, really.”
The king looks like he wants to argue, but after a moment, he nods.
“We’ll have to wait until the tide recedes. Then I’ll be able to send for a carriage.” He winces, his legs still shaky beneath him, as he examines the level of the water against the rock. “We’ll be here for a while.”
I suck in a shuddering breath, attempting to ignore the way his words have unsettled me. The way the intensity of his concern, the breadth of his panic, still flutters beneath my ribs.I thought I was too late, Willa.
I push the sentiment away ruthlessly. Bury the sound of my name wrapped in that drawling accent and force myself to focus on what I can control: knowledge. I refuse to remain in the dark any longer.
“If Letum is—was—Neverland, does that mean the Strayed—are they the Lost Boys?”
Niko grinds his teeth as he stares at me but doesn’t seem inclined to answer. I push on, all the thoughts I’ve suppressed in the past few hours bubbling to the surface. “Why were there so many of them? And what—what happened to make them that way?”
The siren’s screams echo through my mind, her desperate horror as they terrorized and tortured her. I can still feel the pull of their greedy hands on my skin, the resonance of awful words spoken in young voices. Nausea churns my stomach, and shivers race up my arms as I remember the way Dawson stood over me. Like he owned me.
Niko takes a smooth step forward, plucking my cloak from where it’s fallen to the cave floor and wrapping it around my shoulders. The damp fabric does little to warm me, but it soothes the edges of my nerves regardless. He motions for me to sit, and I do as he asks in a daze. The adrenaline of the past few days has abruptly drained away, leaving me floundering beneath a wave of shock.
For a moment, I feel like laughing. Like giggling so wildly my stomach hurts at the absurdity of my entire situation.
The king sits across from me, folding his long legs in a decidedly unroyal manner. It’s far more casual than I’m used to from him, far toohuman.I glance away, even though I canfeel the press of his gaze. Watching as I work to swallow down the rush of emotion, sifting through them until I find the most corporeal of them all to grab onto. Anger.
“What the hell happened to you out there?” I demand. “Are you sick or something? Dying? Rotting from the inside out?”
Niko laughs dryly. “Your concern moves me.”
I glare at him. “If they come back and find us here, I can’t fight them all off alone."
“They will not.” His gaze darkens as it skates around the cave. “You’ve found the one place on the island aside from the Lunaedon that the Strayed dare not enter.”
I barely register his words. Hardly absorb that, somehow, his ribbons of death led me to safety; that I can allow myself to breathe, if only for a moment, without fearing for our lives. Because now that I’ve begun to speak, the questions, the trauma—thehorror—all pour out of me like a broken dam.
“God, they were justchildren.Children are so special in my world, so rare! How—how could something so wonderful and innocent be twisted into such a thing? They weren’t torturing that siren because they wanted something…they were doing it because it wasfunto them.” Acid sizzles in my throat. “It was so horrific, so—so…” I trail off as my hysteria rises, and the world narrows around me.
“How did they know who I am? How do youallknow who I am?!”
I surge to my feet, shoving my hands into the pockets of the dress and pacing frenetically in an attempt to calm the rising panic. Anxiety squeezes my ribs, tighter and tighter, until every breath is sharp and painful. My voice rises an octave, sounding foreign to my own ears.
“Why is it always night here? And how the hell can there be tides if you don’t even have a moon?!”
The king merely raises an eyebrow at my outburst. “Why Willa, I hardly know where to begin addressing your curiosity. Perhaps by presenting you with a chart on the changing of the tides?”
I whip to him with narrowed eyes. “How about you start with thetruth, Niko?”
The king goes perfectly still, and I realize uncomfortably it’s the first time he’s heard me use his given name. I must have said it a thousand times while dragging him here, usually accompanied by a colorful curse, but never while he was awake. I wonder if he’ll correct me—or go so far as to impale me with his ribbons for the disrespect of addressing him by anything other than his royal title.
But he only stares up at me with an unreadable look, before clearing his throat and adjusting his shirt primly.
“I told you the truth,” he challenges, his stare hardening, “and youran.Not a very reassuring recommendation for me to tell you more of it.”
A lump of shame and fury lodges in my throat. Niko’s death sidles from where they’re piled on the floor, to wrap around his wrists and torso like chains. He grimaces, but he doesn’t let go of my gaze even as I squirm beneath his.
“That’s what you do, is it not, Darling? Run away as soon as anything is demanded of you? Leave everyone else to fend for themselves?” Hetsks. “You left Marina to take the brunt of your escape, and I’d be willing to bet you didn’t allow yourself more than a moment to think about it.”
Horror and guilt mingle so furiously in my stomach, I’m certain I’ll be sick. “You didn’t—you didn’t hurt her, did you? It wasn’t her fault! I forcedher help me!”
The king ignores the question entirely, instead tilting his head in frank assessment. “Did you even realize you were capable of anything other than cowardice until tonight?”
